


time forever frozen still

by freckliephil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 01:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckliephil/pseuds/freckliephil
Summary: It doesn’t matter the setting. Sometimes Dan has to stop him, grabbing his arm or his hand, whispering, “wait,” as he pulls his phone out from his pocket, “you look…”He doesn’t have to finish his sentence.





	time forever frozen still

There’s something about pictures.

It’s something that Dan feels, so deeply in the bottom of whatever it is in him that ties him, so strongly, so genuinely to Phil with every fiber of his being. It's something about the way he sometimes just...looks. There’s something that makes Dan feel like he needs to take a moment and just. Hold on to it. Solidify it. Ground it in time.

Because Phil is here, in the parking lot of a random Poundland, glowing in red neon lights and looking like Dan’s entire world because that’s what he is. He’s here, or he’s on a practice stage, or he’s asleep on their sofa or on the beach or eating waffles in a diner in America, and he’s too beautiful, too all around imperfectly lovely and too human and taking up too much of Dan’s heart for him to not notice. 

It doesn’t matter the setting. Sometimes Dan has to stop him, grabbing his arm or his hand, whispering, “wait,” as he pulls his phone out from his pocket, “you look…”

He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. He hasn’t felt the need to finish a sentence in years. Not to Phil. 

Phil, who will laugh at him or strike a pose or hide his face, depending on his mood and his confidence levels of that particular moment. And Dan will take a million pictures of this giant mess of a human being that owns his entire heart. He’ll cherish them all, even the ones he deletes, and especially the ones Phil squawks at, “delete that right now, Dan!” falling from his lips as Dan shares the results of their impromptu photoshoot with him. 

Sometimes, he keeps them anyway. Phil’s not one to talk, if his own equally Dan-centric camera roll is anything to go by. 

There’s more pictures of Phil on his camera roll then anything else. Every selfie, every landscape or aesthetic snapshot he grabs for instagram, all of them get lost under the sea of Phil, Phil, Phil. He doesn’t feel weird about it at all, especially when he gets glimpses of Phil’s camera roll and sees the same thing mirrored there. They love taking pictures of each other. Both of them. It’s mutual.

He’s blown away by it at times. There’s times when he stumbles upon an old picture of them, back when his phone wasn’t filled with pictures. His breath gets caught when he thinks about that folder he had on his computer, one he still has on a flashdrive somewhere, filled with screenshot after screenshot of skype conversations. It’s mostly words, confessions and declarations and far too many words of comfort, of “i like you so so much”, and “I’ve never felt this close to someone before”. There’s pictures there, too. They’re grainy and silly and sometimes just a bit sexy. He cherishes those too.

The thing is, sometimes this life and this love tries to slip out of his belief. Sometimes he still feels like he’s 18 and he’s going to wake up any moment, sad and scared and without a Phil to hold his hand and tell him it’s going to be ok. Sometimes this reality, it gets to feeling like too much in the best way, because they’ve done it. They’re here, wherever here ends up being, together. 

He’s got Phil. And he’s so, so in love with him. Still. Always. 

And so he pulls his phone out. And he takes a picture. Because he wants to remember it, but also just because sometimes it makes the moment last longer, and he wants all of these perfect little moments to last years. He wants to bundle them all up and keep them in a jar, collect them like rocks or seashells and keep them safe under his pillow.

Sometimes he wants to give them to Phil, a gesture that says _“Look at you. Look at all you’ve done for me. Thank you. I love you so.”_ Sometimes he wants to keep them for himself, to remind him that this is real, and here’s the picture to prove it. 

“I like that one,” Phil says, “Send it to me?”

“Sure,” Dan replies. He sends it, and Phil posts it on twitter or makes it his new icon or he just keeps it for himself. 

“Your turn.” Phil says, pulling out his own phone, and Dan just smiles. 

The smile isn’t for the camera, but the picture turns out great anyway. Just like they always do.

**Author's Note:**

> picture me, bolting upright in bed at 12 am because my brain wouldn't let me forget about these two idiots in love and how much they love taking pictures of each other, writing this down in less than 30 minutes, and then tossing my laptop back off the bed to go back to sleep. anyway.
> 
> thanks for reading! come say hi on tumblr, i'm at freckliephil for d&p and my main is abermb! giving this a reblog over there would also be lovely and mean a lot! thanks <3


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